Beginning Fall 2025

Introduction

Welcome to the PhD program. Please refer to this document for guidance on what you will need to do to complete the requirements for the PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering or the PhD in Computer Engineering. The guidance below applies to all students matriculating Fall 2025 or later, until such time that a new version of this handbook is released.

To complete the PhD you will need to meet the following requirements:

1. Complete a minimum of 60 academic units with a minimum coursework requirement as described in PhD Coursework (link below). You must also take the 1 unit EE 698 Doctoral Seminar Series in the Fall semester of your first year in the program as part of the 60 required units.

2. Pass the PhD Screening Exam in one of three areas of interest as described in PhD Screening Exam (link below).

3. Pass the PhD Qualifying Exam within four years of entering the program as described in PhD Qualifying Exam (link below).

4. Pass your PhD Defense and submit the final version of your PhD Thesis to the Graduate School and myViterbi. More information in the link below.

The majority of your time as a PhD student will be spent on completing and writing up the research in your PhD Thesis. To do so you need to find a PhD Advisor willing to supervise your research. See Section 2 for suggestions on finding a PhD Advisor as well as rules for selecting your PhD Qualifying Committee and your PhD Defense Committee.

To ensure that all students are progressing satisfactorily through the PhD program, each student must complete a progress report each semester. The department will review your report and an evaluation from your PhD advisor and provide feedback on whether your progress meets expectations. If your progress is judged not to be satisfactory, we will provide guidance as to what you need to do to address this.

Finding a PhD Advisor and Forming your Qualifying & Defense Committees

One of the most important decisions of your PhD is in finding an advisor. If you received a Fellowship for your first year in the PhD program you are free to rotate through two or three labs or research groups (with the consent of the associated faculty members) before making a decision.  Alternatively, if you have already made arrangements to join a particular research group, you can do so immediately. Rotations are not required.

If you joined USC as a Research Assistant, then you are required to work with the faculty member providing the RA support, at least for your first year. You are free to change advisors after one year provided you make arrangements for financial support with your new advisor.

It is important that all PhD students identify a PhD advisor by the end of your first academic year and make arrangements for financial support (RA, TA or other) for your second year.

On rare occasions students may decide to change PhD advisors. If this situation arises, you should seek advice from the Department Chair or Vice Chair, the Associate Chair for Graduate Affairs, or the Director of Student Services.

PhD Advisor

Your PhD advisor must be a tenured, tenure-track or research professor with a primary appointment in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering or a tenured/tenure-track professor from another department at USC who holds a courtesy joint appointment in ECE.

Qualifying Exam Committee

The committee consists of five persons, including at least three with a primary appointment in ECE, of which a minimum of two must be tenured or tenure-track faculty. One outside member must be a tenured/tenure-track faculty member with primary appointment in a USC department other than ECE; T/TT faculty with courtesy appointments in ECE may serve as the outside member. The policy of the USC Graduate School is that qualifying committees can only have five members.

Dissertation Defense Commitee: consists of a minimum of three persons and a maximum of five, including at least two with primary appointment in ECE, of which at least one must be tenured or tenure-track faculty, and at least one outside member who is a tenured/tenure-track faculty member with primary appointment in a USC department other than ECE. T/TT faculty with courtesy appointments in ECE may serve as the outside member.

Note

The outside member of the qualifying and defense committees must be a full-time tenured/tenure-track faculty member at USC with the authority to chair a PhD committee in his or her home department/school. It is particularly important to check this for faculty from the Keck School of Medicine, many of whom do not have this privilege.